The next billion cryptocurrency users won’t care about blockchain

The biggest problem with cryptocurrencies at the moment is that they are too difficult. The average Web3 app requires a level of technical skill that most people lack, and until that changes, few will be willing to let the industry go.

Getting started with cryptocurrencies is difficult enough, as you need to set up a wallet, store your seed phrase securely, and figure out how to actually purchase your seed phrase. Then you have all the different networks. To be honest, the complexity of cryptocurrencies creates a significant barrier to entry. It’s similar to going out to eat, but visiting different restaurants and ordering each ingredient. Visit one for a steak, a fast food restaurant for fries, or a bistro for gravy. Also, don’t forget to have a separate currency for each transaction.

People won’t do that, and they won’t start using blockchain just because they suddenly become convinced that decentralization is absolutely necessary. But if you offer a really good app that happens to be built on blockchain and is intuitive to use, all of a sudden they’re hooked.

Blockchain has to go!

Sadly, very few people in the cryptocurrency industry are trying to build such apps. Rather, they are barking up the wrong tree with their beliefs about ideological purity and arguments about the best way to scale. They waste their time talking about user education and the benefits of decentralization, lying to themselves that these things will help popularize cryptocurrencies.

The truth is, they don’t. Outside of a handful of blockchain geeks, no one cares about decentralization or is willing to spend hours learning about it. The prospect of “greater financial inclusion” isn’t going to get your grandma excited enough to start scouring YouTube for instructions on how to set up a crypto wallet.

If the cryptocurrency industry is going to convince billions of users to join blockchain in the future, it needs to focus on abstraction, not education or decentralization. The goal must be for blockchain to “disappear” in the same way that the TCP/IP protocols that underpin the operation of the Internet become invisible to 99% of users. By removing the technical know-how and jargon associated with blockchain, Web3 applications can be as useful and easy to use as traditional smartphone applications. That way you’ll get more hires.

The Internet learned this lesson when it switched from typing in IP numbers to typing in addresses in plain language, and then just clicking on links. This was a small change, but it had a dramatic impact on making the web more accessible. This is exactly what blockchain needs today.

There are many things that can be done to make blockchain disappear. At the moment, people are turned off by many of its features: seed phrases, private keys (what’s the difference?!), long random wallet addresses, gas fees, bridging, liquidity, etc. Abstraction means erasing these things, allowing users to interact with cryptocurrencies and Web3 the same way they interact with email and social media accounts.

actual abstraction

I don’t know exactly how the abstraction works, but I know what needs to be done. First, creating a wallet should be as simple as entering an email address and password, and you should provide a reliable way for users to recover their password if they forget it. If everyone has to write down their seed phrase and hide it, it won’t work.

That way, you can eliminate the large number of wallets needed to work with different networks. What we want is a single wallet that consolidates all our funds in one place and allows us to send and receive money from other wallets. The technical part uses cross-chain bridges to transfer funds to different networks, sign authorizations, and ensure there are enough funds to pay gas fees. All these should disappear and be replaced with one click.

Smart contracts should follow the same path as TCP/IP. Because people don’t care how you work, as long as it’s working. We also need to eliminate liquidity, but we also need more liquidity so that users can exchange their tokens without delay. Make sure this file exists for transactions to work. But don’t worry about the details. Gas prices should also become simpler. By allowing people to pay with any token, they no longer need to “hold” Ethereum (ETH) just to send USDC (USDC). Otherwise it will be too confusing.

Let’s make crypto work

There’s a reason why social media apps like Facebook and Instagram are so popular. That’s because there’s basically no learning curve. When you open the app, it works intuitively, so people are hooked on it.

Abstraction has to become the holy grail of blockchain. We need to remove all the complexity and difficulty so that people can actually understand what Web3 has to offer. It’s past time to achieve this. Although the Internet only began to take shape in the 1980s, by 2001 over 55% of Americans were already online, achieving mainstream adoption in no time.

Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, are entering their 20th year and are not as popular as their web contemporaries. Much progress has been made. We’re looking at thousands of different coins and blockchains, real-world assets and NFTs, but people are still juggling multiple wallets and seed phrases and wondering about cross-chain bridges. Cryptocurrencies are still dominant, but the internet was already on autopilot at this point.

Blockchain must disappear. That way, users will only see useful, interesting, and addictive applications that add value to their lives. Cryptocurrencies need to focus on ideological debates and the complexity of layer 2 networks and stop debating which one is best. No one cares. All they want to see is a seamless application that actually works, not trying to understand how the application works.